SACRAMENTO — Californians will get their first look Friday at political maps being drafted by an independent citizens panel, a process that is expected to influence the kind of politicians sent to Sacramento and Washington.

The 14-member California Citizens Redistricting Commission was established by voters under Proposition 11 in 2008 in response to gerrymandering by lawmakers. Voters favored switching to an independent commission to draw legislative maps after state lawmakers used the process for decades to protect their own incumbents and their parties.

Supporters hoped the new process would encourage the election of more moderate politicians and thus reduce political gridlock.

The commission will release the first draft of maps Friday and hand in a final version in August.

“I think a big factor in the low registration and low voting rates in California among some communities is disenchantment with the political process. And a big source of that disenchantment is the fact that people feel that politicians have chosen their voters instead of the other way around,” said Maria Blanco, a commissioner from Los Angeles. “The measure of success will be whether we see more people … willing to participate in the political process.”

The process is being closely watched because California has one of the few citizen-led panels in the nation. It also has implications for state legislative and congressional districts.

According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, most state maps have their political boundaries drawn by the Legislature or commissions appointed by the parties or governors. Arizona’s model comes closest with five commissioners selected at random.

California’s citizens commission was created in a lengthy process overseen by the state auditor’s office. The commissioners were chosen from an initial field of about 30,000 applicants and reflect the state’s racial diversity.

The panel will draw the maps for all 120 state Senate and Assembly districts, the state’s 53 congressional districts and for the districts represented on the five-member Board of Equalization, which collects state sales taxes, vice taxes and fees, and hears appeals on tax disputes. Last November, voters rejected a ballot initiative that sought to eliminate the commission.

Commissioners are being paid $300 a day plus expenses each time they meet.

Paul Mitchell, president of Redistricting Partners, a consulting firm in Sacramento, said the public will like some of what it sees, but not everything.

“On the input, I would give it high marks — the public nature of it, the hearings. You’ve got extremely smart people on the commission. They’re doing the right things,” Mitchell said.

“My belief though is it’s not going to meet the expectations of the public. Maybe the public had expectations that they voted for these sets of initiatives, and the result was going to be that they were going to have all these districts be square boxes, and every district was going to be competitive — and that’s not happening.”

Previous gerrymandering of political boundaries had left the state with oddly shaped districts and little turnover between the parties.

Tony Quinn, an expert on California political races, said the commission will release an adequate first draft, but there still will be room for improvement. He said while the Assembly and congressional maps look good, the Senate maps need to be cleaned up.

For example, he said one Senate district runs from Lodi, a conservative agricultural community in the Central Valley, to Marin County, a liberal hotbed.

“I think the Senate maps show a Democratic bias,” said Quinn, co-editor of the California Target Book, which analyzes state legislative and congressional races.

Blanco said she expects the commission to get a lot more public input once the first draft is released.

The maps will try to string communities together but will need to follow the landmark Voting Rights Act of 1965, passed in response to the civil rights movement. The maps also will reflect a population that has migrated from the coast to the state’s interior.

“There’s no doubt you’re going to see maps that aren’t gerrymandered,” Blanco said. “I think we will have concerns by probably ethnic groups and maybe even geographic concerns that are due to just huge shifts in the way the population has grown in different parts of the state.”

(Click here if you are unable to view this photo gallery on your mobile device) The Ruth Bancroft Garden in Walnut Creek celebrates the life of its founder Ruth Bancroft who died at 109 on November 26, 2017. The Ruth Bancroft Garden is a nonprofit public dry garden that was planted by Mrs. Ruth Bancroft in 1972 and was opened to the...